{"id":109679,"date":"2025-03-04T11:34:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/03\/04\/court-furious-after-lawyer-threatens-suicide-if-they-rule-against-him\/"},"modified":"2025-03-04T11:34:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:34:28","slug":"court-furious-after-lawyer-threatens-suicide-if-they-rule-against-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/03\/04\/court-furious-after-lawyer-threatens-suicide-if-they-rule-against-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Furious After Lawyer Threatens Suicide If They Rule Against Him"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

National Lampoon<\/em> once put a gun to the head of a dog and declared \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Buy This Magazine, We\u2019ll Kill This Dog<\/a>.\u201d A stroke of genius for a humor magazine in the 1970s \u2014 it was named the 7th best magazine cover of all time<\/a> \u2014 it proved a less effective legal tactic in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

A lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court of India told the justices that he\u2019d kill himself if they did not grant his petition in a criminal case<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHow can you threaten the court that you will commit suicide if we don\u2019t allow your prayer? You are a lawyer. We will ask the Bar Council to suspend your license and register an FIR,\u201d said the bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court asked the lawyer to submit a written apology by March 7 or face consequences.<\/p>\n

The lawyer\u2019s suicide threat came in connection with a petition \u2014 Ramesh Kumaran and another v. State. The petitioner Ramesh Kumaran, a member of the Bar, appearing on video conference, said if the police case against respondent number 2 is cancelled, he would commit suicide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The attorney ultimately confessed that the remark, made during a teleconference hearing, was the result of getting \u201cemotional.\u201d But the justices still want a written apology anyway. Threatening violence \u2014 against yourself or others \u2014 is still a threat, which makes this intimidation not advocacy. And if it was just a poor attempt at humor it trivializes mental health for the purpose of litigation strategy.<\/p>\n

In either event, the Court wants the apology in writing to send a clear message that they\u2019re not going to tolerate these sorts of threats. A message they apparently need to send because this has happened before<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

A similar incident took place last year before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar, and R. Mahadevan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is going on in India? Can\u2019t you just threaten to stop funding the Supreme Court justices\u2019 luxury vacations<\/a> under the table like we do?<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Seeks Written Apology As Lawyer Threatens Suicide<\/a> [NDTV]<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Court Furious After Lawyer Threatens Suicide If They Rule Against Him<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

National Lampoon<\/em> once put a gun to the head of a dog and declared \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Buy This Magazine, We\u2019ll Kill This Dog<\/a>.\u201d A stroke of genius for a humor magazine in the 1970s \u2014 it was named the 7th best magazine cover of all time<\/a> \u2014 it proved a less effective legal tactic in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

A lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court of India told the justices that he\u2019d kill himself if they did not grant his petition in a criminal case<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHow can you threaten the court that you will commit suicide if we don\u2019t allow your prayer? You are a lawyer. We will ask the Bar Council to suspend your license and register an FIR,\u201d said the bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court asked the lawyer to submit a written apology by March 7 or face consequences.<\/p>\n

The lawyer\u2019s suicide threat came in connection with a petition \u2014 Ramesh Kumaran and another v. State. The petitioner Ramesh Kumaran, a member of the Bar, appearing on video conference, said if the police case against respondent number 2 is cancelled, he would commit suicide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The attorney ultimately confessed that the remark, made during a teleconference hearing, was the result of getting \u201cemotional.\u201d But the justices still want a written apology anyway. Threatening violence \u2014 against yourself or others \u2014 is still a threat, which makes this intimidation not advocacy. And if it was just a poor attempt at humor it trivializes mental health for the purpose of litigation strategy.<\/p>\n

In either event, the Court wants the apology in writing to send a clear message that they\u2019re not going to tolerate these sorts of threats. A message they apparently need to send because this has happened before<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

A similar incident took place last year before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar, and R. Mahadevan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is going on in India? Can\u2019t you just threaten to stop funding the Supreme Court justices\u2019 luxury vacations<\/a> under the table like we do?<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Seeks Written Apology As Lawyer Threatens Suicide<\/a> [NDTV]<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Lampoon once put a gun to the head of a dog and declared \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Buy This Magazine, We\u2019ll Kill This Dog.\u201d A stroke of genius for a humor magazine in the 1970s \u2014 it was named the 7th best magazine cover of all time \u2014 it proved a less effective legal tactic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":109668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Headshot-300x200-01s0cd.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}